Everybody, that is, except the 11 percent of the
population that is still officially unemployed
today.

A Bad Internet Day

While I am worrying about the speed of my hunt-and-tap
efforts with the keyboard and the impossibility of making
this magazine's deadline; unknown to me, the Internet is
having one of its 'bad days.'

Long-time Internet users will know what these are. For
those of you who may have recently logged on - who have
been convinced that the Internet is an
all-powerful wonder of modern techno - the fact is,
sometimes its 'logy' gets tangled up in its wires.

La
Soubise is a good spot for spending 'Bad Internet
Days.'

This comment has been added on Monday - sometime after
the deadline - we have had a power failure on Monday at the
server. Low-tech this; the cleaning lady plugged the
vacuum-cleaner into the wrong socket.

Thirty minutes later all the servers have been re-booted
and then it is discovered that in-and-out access is
dropping dead at Saint-Quentin, only a few kilometres up
the road from the server. Nothing to do with the cleaning
lady.

Meanwhile in Paris, as I upload pages of the new issue,
the Internet seems very irregular, plus it tells me
Metropole doesn't exist. So I switch from the Web to the
mailserver, and send in the pages that way. About the
meltdown in Saint-Quentin I am ignorant - so the emailed
pages arrive nowhere.

After I finish another page, it goes successfully
through to the server via the Web. I must have slipped
through a keyhole somewhere because a little later I get a
phone call from the server-lady, Linda Thalman, who says
Saint-Quentin is still in the garbage can.

These 'bad Internet days' happen often enough so they
are almost routine. No need for panic! Sooner or later we
will be back online. Always. Even if the Y2K bug brings us
to our knees, we will be back online soon. Do not
adjust your set, do not change stations.

Everybody will be back online, just as soon as this 'bad
Internet day' is over - which may be 15 minutes from now.
We don't lose much sleep over these things, but our
life-expectancy will be reduced somewhat.

French Web
Life

While the rest of France made a big to-do about our
planet finally reaching a theoretical population of six
billion human beings during the week - not counting ants,
pinheads and mosquitos of course - Paris' Grande Galerie de
l'Evolution started an exhibition with the title, 'Pas
Si Bêtes! 1000 Cerveaux, 1000 Mondes.' Actually
this item should be on the 'Scene' page, so here is the
Web
version, which will be online until 10. July 2000.
Imagine - there are 1000 brains around!

'Pagina'
Update

While lawyers consult whatever it is they consult about
tricky cases, the online French Lit. Mag. 'Pagina' has found a
temporary home on the Web, apparently hosted by one of
Paris' earliest and liveliest 'cybercafés, the
WebBar.

Although Pagina's new home may be temporary, the new URL
is already on Metropole's links page - so you won't get any
'404's from it. This timely Web site has had a link here
since the Salon du
Livre of 1997 and keeping it up-to-date is important in
these censorious times.

On Wednesday, 20. October, Philippe di Folco, who runs
Pagina, will be the host of a debate about censorship on
the Web, direct from the
WebBar in Paris. Check it out.

URL Shorties - Science with a capital 'S' hits
the Web in France on the occasion of 'La Semaine de la
Science,' which runs from Monday, 18. October until the
following Sunday, 24. October. The Ministry of National
Education, Research and Technology - or MENRT for short -
has a Web
site where you can find out about everything that is
going on throughout France, techno-wise. This will be a
'bijou' for industrial spies. Some free and practical
information is available, such as weather, the bourse,
horoscopes or the Paris traffic report, at Webfute, which has links to
various free sources. All you want to know about the
theatre; especially what is playing and what you should
see, is presented by the new site, Webthea. The site also offers
links to other theatre-related sites. The 8th Prix Möbius France
1999 ran off on Friday, 15. and Saturday, 16. October
at the Cité des Sciences. This effort saluted the
best multimedia productions for the past year. Suggestions
for these Web site references have been supplied by
'Internet
Actu.'